Brave Witches

Episode 3

Note: next week's episode of Brave Witches will be delayed due to production issues.

Episode 3 assures us that whatever else may happen, Brave Witches is going to be a reliable show, but that might not always be meant as a compliment.

It's by no means a complete retread of Strike Witches, because the motivational differences between Hikari in this series and Yoshika in that one are just too different. (Besides that, Yoshika never lacked for sufficient magical power like Hikari does.) However, Hikari's path is now looking much like the standard “learn to be a hero” journey seen in innumerable coming-of-age series over the years. The general pattern is that the protagonist strives to be a part of some larger, powerful organization even though they're at least somewhat deficient in talent or power. Expectations are fairly high because of family members or some other association, but the character struggles to keep up with the pack. Just when the higher-ups are about to give up on the protagonist, they demonstrate enough pluck and the bare minimum of usefulness necessary to stay on. There's also another character who's unhappy to have to work with the protagonist and only begrudgingly acknowledges that they might be useful, and the protagonist might have some special power/ability that's highly useful but only works fitfully or must be mastered to matter in a pinch. That pattern fits episode 3 perfectly. Granted, the writing handles these tropes fairly well, but anyone expecting even a fresh angle (much less a fresh storyline) is going to be disappointed.

Beyond Hikari's struggles with managing to keep her place in the 502nd, the other main feature of the episode is the formal introduction of the 502nd's multinational roster. Naoe takes up the role of a rival who was looking forward to working with Hikari's sister and gets bitterly disappointed that Hikari is there instead. Though her relationship with Hikari is combative now, I will be quite surprised if they don't end up becoming tight before the end of the series. None of the others get much characterization yet, although Nipa somewhat comes across as the group's resident competent ditz, and it looks like we might have a prospective lesbian character in Waltrude. It also looks like most of the characters are still being named after famous fighter pilots, as Edytha Rossmann, the pilot instructor for the 502nd, is clearly a nod to WWII German ace Edmund Rossmann, who was also a pilot instructor in the later stages of the war. Further, Georgette Lemare is a reference to French ace Georges Lemare, Sadako Shimohara is based on Japanese ace Sadao Uehara, and so forth. (See the Strike Witches Wikia page for a complete breakdown of who each pilot is named for.)

The main takeaway from all of this is that Naoe is likely to become a fan-favorite character, especially with a specialized magical ability that essentially allows her to literally punch through Neuroi; I wouldn't be at all surprised if she ranks in character popularity polls after the end of this season. She also seems to be getting the focus in the slight amounts of fanservice the series indulges. And yes, it does look like at least one Brave Witch is wearing her tights while using her flyer units, which raises the question of why all of the Witches aren't doing it. I guess that's just a trivial detail for a series like this.

Rating: B-

Brave Witches is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.